Dear Buses of Halifax:
God love ya for driving our sorry asses around so we can make it to work on time when we live an hour walk away. That said… why are you always so damn late after work?!
I know it’s busy and shizzzz, but honestly… other cities have badass city buses that are there on time all the time. Let’s make this work, find a way! It can most definitely be done.
Warm Regards, —Impatiently awaiting my cold beer in the fridge… as I wait for a smelly bus
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2010.
The problem isn’t the buses, it the candy ass city engineers who can’t coorinate traffic lights among other things.
It’s not the buses, it’s the candy assed city engineers who can’t co-ordinate traffic lights among other things.
I suspect the construction everywhere may have something to do with it. My bus after work hasn’t been on time in weeks.
Construction at night? I’ve heard other cities do it. Why not Halifax?
It’s not just the lights, a lot of the problems come from Metro Transit route planners who insist on scheduling back to back trips for the buses. You run late on your first trip and because there isn’t a 10 minute “window” between runs you are now late for trip two and so on. Go to a big city like Montreal or Calgary and most buses have 5 or 10 minutes layover before starting their next trip. That extra time comes in handy when running late during peak hours or when construction delays occur.
I complained to MT last year when a bunch of 52’s got delayed on the Halifax side and transit officials refused to send out a couple of extra buses into Burnside at the end of rush hour, even though there were plenty of out of services buses deadheading into the park. It’s real nice when 7 of 8 buses assigned to that route were sitting in Halifax, and the 8th was headed to join them. MT has never heard of dispatching extra buses or short-turning buses when traffic patterns lead to delays.
buses are not late just topiss you off o.p., they piss everyone off. and so does all this detours and construction going on. but if it wasn’t, then someone would be bitching aboput that here. they can’t win at transit.
Problem with halifax is that we live in a car culture. Next time you’re waiting for that bus, OP, count how many cars drive by with only one person in it.
More cars = more traffic = more late busses = less people inclined to use public transit.
It’s a vicious cycle, really.
Trust me OP, I hate being late as much as you hate me being late, I wanna get home too. There are many factors involved like traffic, construction zones, North St., accidents, unruly passengers, passengers who can’t be bothered to have fare ready, North St., buses breaking down, you get the picture.
…and the MacKay bridge being closed all weekend certainly didn’t help either. What a chaotic mess on Gottingen/North. Ugh. My bus was 25 minutes late yesterday because of asshats blocking up the intersection well after the lights turn yellow and just sitting there in the way of traffic travelling in the other direction.
Don’t bother complaining to Metro Transit. They insist all their buses are always on time. Yeah right. Obviously the people who work for Metro Transit don’t use it.